Islamabad: Pakistani prosecutors Tuesday filed
a petition in a Rawalpindi-based anti-terrorism court for the
formation of a commission that would visit India to record the
testimony of 24 key witnesses in the Mumbai attacks case.
Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) prosecutor Chaudhry
Zulfiqar told PTI that the petition was filed in the
anti-terrorism court of Judge Malik Mohammad Akram Awan, who
is conducting the trial of LeT's operations chief Zakiur
Rehman Lakhvi and six other Pakistani suspects charged with
involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
The prosecution proposed that a representative of lawyers
defending the accused should be made part of the commission,
so that they could cross-examine the 24 Indian witnesses,
including a magistrate, a police officer and doctors who had
conducted autopsies of the victims.
The judge issued notices to the accused to submit their
response to the petition at the next hearing of the Mumbai
attacks case scheduled for September 18.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik had last week acknowledged
that the trial of the Pakistani suspects was stalled and it
was imperative to form the commission that would go to India
to record the testimony of the key witnesses like the
magistrate and the police officer.
The magistrate had recorded the confessional statement of
Ajmal Kasab, the lone attacker captured alive during the
Mumbai strikes, while the police officer had led the
investigation of the 2008 attacks that had killed 166 people.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, September 07, 2010, 16:18